Neither a Good War, Nor a Bad Peace
by grumkinsnark
Summary: For a year she could call herself truly happy.  Then...Sam.  And she knew in that moment that, cold Sam or no, Dean was gone.


**Neither a Good War, Nor a Bad Peace

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When she took him in, she knew it wouldn't last; she's not naïve. He was drunk off his ass most of the time, when he wasn't sleeping, that is. He wasn't an angry drunk—or if he was, he never took it out on her or her son, so she let it be.

It wasn't perfect; hell, it was downright dysfunctional, but she found herself more content than she ever had been before. She began to _like_ coming home to a filled house, lights on, TV playing some sports game. She began to _like_ cooking an extra meal, pouring an extra glass, she began to _like_ being able to finally tell her mother she had a man in her life whom both she and Ben adored. Dean's head was a mess, and she knew he was more or less pretending for their sake, but selfishly she _liked_ it.

Of course, in the back of her mind she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. For a year it didn't, for a year she could call herself truly _happy_. And then…Sam.

She wasn't lying when she told Dean she was glad Sam was okay. She'd seen how torn up Dean was over his brother, and though she hadn't interacted much with Sam before, he'd helped save her son. That gave him points in her book, even if she didn't know much about him. But when he came back, that barest glimpse she got of him, she knew there was something…different. He was cold; not rude, but…empty. She knew Dean couldn't see it, because he was just ecstatic his brother was back, but she could see it.

And she knew what it meant. She knew that, cold Sam or no, Dean was gone. She spent night after night assuring Ben that he was still there if they needed him, but it took her a while to teach herself not to bring out a third set of silverware, to remind herself to cancel ESPN; and she never did get the courage to tell her mother that Dean was gone.

She was surprised at herself when she couldn't help the harsh words from coming out of her mouth. They were biting, _awful_. They were what she was thinking, but it didn't mean she wanted to actually _say_ them. Dean wasn't there, but she could imagine his face, how it must have withered. She doesn't exactly regret them—she knew there was something wrong with Dean that night, but when it came right down to it, he gave Ben nightmares and bruises, and that was unacceptable—but nevertheless, she still feels his absence.

There's a woman down the street from them, the widow of a man who had fallen in Fallujah. Lisa had never paid her much mind before, primarily because the woman wasn't the most forthcoming of people, but one day while Lisa is busy sweeping the driveway, as if there'd been an invisible beacon her subconscious sent out, the woman comes over.

"Lisa," she says, her voice quiet, near a whisper.

Lisa starts a little, caught off-guard. "Oh, hi…Jenny," she says, remembering the woman's name at the last minute. "Are you—how's it going?"

Jenny crosses her arms over her torso, like trying to keep herself together, but then takes a breath and says, "I'm sorry."

Lisa frowns. "Pardon?" she asks.

"I know the signs," Jenny replies. "The same happened to me. Will called me when he could, said he'd be back as soon as his tour was over. Then one day…he just didn't keep his promise. I see it in your eyes, Lisa."

Tightening her jaw, Lisa says flatly, "Dean didn't go off to war, Jenny. He's just—we're just—"

She stops herself mid-sentence, realizing that, in a way, Dean _had_ gone off to war. He isn't fighting insurgents, isn't avoiding roadside bombs, but he uses guns, knives, he dodges certain death, he makes promises he can't keep.

She looks at Jenny, at the woman's perpetually broken expression, and wonders if hers really is similar. And if she does, does Ben see it too? She hopes he doesn't. "If you ever want to talk," continues Jenny, "I'm here. And if it makes you feel better, him leaving has nothing to do with you. It was just something he had to do."

_But it wasn't,_ Lisa wants to scream in Jenny's face. _He had a choice. He could've stayed with us. Hell, I'd've taken Sam in, too, if it meant…_

"Thank you," she says instead, giving Jenny as non-bitter a smile as she can muster.

She's not sure what excuse she says to the woman, all she knows is that one moment Jenny's there, and the next she's walking away towards her husbandless home. Lisa drops the broom she'd been white-knuckling, and stiffly strides into her own house. Ben's still at school, which renders the suddenly too-large house silent. Lisa's eye gets drawn to the kitchen, to the mug out of which Dean had always drunk his coffee.

She walks into the room, grabs the cup, and throws it at the wall, feeling a strange juxtaposition of satisfaction and pain as it shatters into a million pieces. She makes a round through each room of the house, through each place Dean had inhabited, systematically destroying everything he'd owned, everything he'd touched, leaving a wake of smashed items, the walls and carpet becoming the only unbroken things that had been tainted by Dean's hands.

Lisa looks at the top of her dresser and notices she'd forgotten something. In an old picture frame rests a candid photo her sister had taken of the three of them. Lisa gazes at herself playing with Ben, Dean sitting on a bench a ways away, his face wistful and…_content_. She'd kept the photo solely because of Dean's expression, but now…she pulls the picture out of its wood enclosure and begins to tear it in half, but her shaking fingers don't allow it.

She stares down at it again and throws it into her sock drawer, at the very back with the gaudy holiday footies and nylons that don't fit her anymore. It lands face down, granting her the respite.

Her will to even stand failing, she leans against the wall and slides down, feeling as though the very air in the room is pressing unrelentingly on her shoulders. "Damn it, Dean…" she murmurs to herself.

She doesn't comprehend how long she sits there until she hears the front door open and slam, then the sounds of shoes being tossed off and a backpack slung to the floor. She drags her eyes to the clock on her nightstand that reads 3:15. She shuts her eyes in regret when she realizes that she'd never cleaned up the evidence of her breakdown, and immediately Ben yells out and comes bounding up the stairs, sliding to a stop outside her room.

"Mom?" he asks, his face stricken. She can see the questions running through his head: _Is it a monster? What happened? Did Dean leave a gun I can use to hurt the thing that ruined our house? _"Mom, are you okay?"

She'd always known Ben erred on the side of being more astute than other kids his age, more mature—especially after his encounter with the supernatural—but she doesn't quite acknowledge it until this moment. Clearly discerning his mother won't—_can't_—explain, Ben walks towards her and sits down, looking up at her.

"Dean's gone for good, isn't he?" Ben asks quietly, doing the math that they'd both been putting off solving as long as they could.

Lisa hesitates, then nods. "Yeah," she says. "I think so. But he did care about you, I know he did."

Ben's face is drawn, determined, making him look so much older than his twelve years. "Not enough," Ben replies. Wrapping his small arms around Lisa's shoulders, he whispers, "It's okay, Mom. We don't need him anyway."

Lisa doesn't respond, doesn't know what she'd say anyway. Because the truth is, she's not entirely sure she can go back to how she was before; after getting a taste of _normal_, she's not sure she can go back to _before_. She'd tried her damndest to make Ben think she was always in control, but there'd been more moments that she cares to remember when she'd thought she couldn't continue on. And now, now especially, she fears how she's supposed to just pretend Dean had never come into their lives, screwed them all up.

"Love you, Mom," says Ben, his hands still gripping her arms.

"I love you, too, baby," Lisa replies, knowing that that, at least, had never changed. And she vows then and there that, no matter if Dean comes back begging and pleading, her door will stay shut. Far as she's concerned, there was never—and would never be—a Dean Winchester.


End file.
